One has to assume that the people from Beauberry House put some thought into
the music they chose for their website. But I’m listening to it now on my
laptop, piping eerily out from the Beauberry House website that is lurking
behind my virtual page, and wondering how on earth they arrived at it.
It’s not anything you’d put on yourself, on your own stereo, at home. Unless,
perhaps, you had been asked at short notice to host a humanist funeral for
the recently departed pet snake of the strange upstairs neighbour whose
tricycle has been chained to the tree in the front garden since you moved
in, and whose post always smells of patchouli. I’ve heard stuff a bit like
it when being massaged with hot rocks at small private spas in Reykjavik and
Oslo. But that’s my business.
The percussive foundation has been laid down by a computer with a “gently
tapping fork on tin foil” setting, and with the “woozy astral breezes” dial
turned up to full. Then there are some antipodean pipes – the effect is
somewhere between the theme from Twin Peaks and one of the moodier
moments in Crocodile Dundee – and now something ploppy, rising and
falling, and now, hang on, something very full-pitched and breathy, like
maybe Willard White whistling in the shower, or possibly whalesong.
It makes you want to lie down, relax, go into a coma. Then perhaps be oiled
with coconut butter and walked on by a small-footed Polynesian widow.
Whatever the music is supposed to prepare you for, it is certainly not
eating. Which is why I’m turning it off now, before I am forced to beat
myself to death with a bar of hemp soap.
I took recourse to the website, a thing I rarely bother with (due to a
quasi-allergic intolerance I have of gastronomic mission statements, chef
biographies and menu- binding colour charts), because, although Beauberry
House claims to have been in situ since 1785, and was supposedly turned into
a restaurant as long ago as 1996, it has merited, according to my infallible
UK news database, not a single mention in the press, ever.
And that’s very strange. I have never heard of a restaurant that has never
been mentioned in the press ever. Certainly not one in a big Georgian House
in a park on the edge of Dulwich Village. I could imagine why a big snooty
place in a twee ruropolis might have been mentioned only occasionally. But
not to have been mentioned ever. Well, it smacks rather of the way vampires
don’t have reflections. Couple that with the music and… well, it’s just a
bit spooky, is all.
Still, my boss insisted that it was there, and that it was new (which I guess
is the same as being ten years old and never having been mentioned in the
press), and that it was in a park with outdoor tables and would be a nice
thing for our special summer issue. And I said “OK”. And then he said,
because if he had said it earlier it would have looked like he was trying
too hard, “they do a fried wagyu beef fillet with black truffles”.
Now, I’ll go anywhere for wagyu. Anywhere. So I checked the website and
confirmed that it was on the menu, along with all sorts of other top-end
Frenchy/Japanesey-sounding things such as charolais tartare with wasabi,
octopus salad with yuzu dressing and roast fillet of venison with quince and
liquorice, and I thought to myself, “Hello, hello, hello, this place might
be a bit of all right.” There was nothing on the website about which dishes
were served on what days of the week and at what times. Nothing.
I phoned and booked a table for Saturday lunch, since that is the only time
when I, in common with most people, can get out to SE21 for a proper meal. I
asked if they would have the wagyu (sometimes with such nectar one has to
pre-order) and was told that while the menu was changeable, there was a
better than average chance. She said nothing about Saturday lunch being any
different. Nothing.
It was the first decent day of spring when we pulled into the still slightly
junkyardy parking lot in front of the obviously very newly refitted
restaurant. It was big and white with bowed extensions – very ambassadorial –
and surrounded by, ooh, four or five acres of unambitiously landscaped park.
The chap at the desk was tall, wore a suit, found the booking. Behind him was
a circular stairwell painted pale pink with a screaming fuchsia carpet
tearing madly upwards through the middle of it. Weird. Not scary weird, just Alice
in Wonderland weird. Why mess with a Georgian atrium?
Tall man showed us into a big, bright, white, light dining room. White like an
Ultrabrite advert. White like in a dream. Except that all the chairs were
made of fluorescent orange plastic. Orange like in a nightmare. I simply
couldn’t sit in there. No human could. I have not seen furniture so wrong
since an eccentric friend had his parents’ bodies stuffed and turned into
lamps for his library – and that didn’t even happen.
Unable to sit inside, we sat outside. It was just warm enough. The views were
pleasant. Nothing was orange. A woman brought a menu. It was the weekend
brunch menu, and it offered: eggs Benedict, Caesar salad, goat’s cheese
salad, cod and chips, mushroom risotto, roast beef with potatoes and veg,
confit lamb shoulder and stir-fried chicken in black bean sauce.
“Ha, ha, ha,” I said, genuinely amused. “Very funny. I’ve driven nearly an
hour and a half from North London for chicken caesar and a poached egg with
ham. You got me. OK, can I have the à la carte menu now?”
“Sorry?”
“The à la carte.”
“I don’t understand.”
“What don’t you understand? You are familiar with the notion of an à la carte
menu?”
“No.”
“No?”
“I am new.”
“But you’re French.”
So off she went, and out came tall guy to explain that the à la carte menu
was available only in the evenings, and that some of the dishes from it
featured on the lunch menu, but that was available only Monday to Friday. We
had to choose from the brunch menu, because on Saturday something happens to
the human stomach which means that it is able to swallow only hybrid
Cali-Med lady food. But they don’t choose to tell us that on the website, or
when we phone to book.
So, even though the chef was there, and the ingredients were there, and four
or five hours from then people in this very seat would be tucking into such
dishes as “wagyu poéle aux truffes”, “côte de veau ‘blonde d’aquitaine’”,
“tempura de homard” and “anguille roti au saké”, I had to have the Café
Rouge specials.
I lived. There was a tataki (seared carpaccio) of bog-standard beef with
bleak, insipid sesame dressing, a bit of mackerel that wasn’t especially
fresh on bland lentils, and a confit lamb shoulder which would have been
quite a find in a Wolverhampton gastropub. The highlight was a very decent
bit of roasted black cod in black bean sauce from the à la carte, which they
let us have because I whined and whined and whined. And we had a good bottle
of Meursault (from an arrogant and punishingly priced list) and a nice
snooze on the grass afterwards.
Look, I’m still a bit pissed off. But I acknowledge that most of my
negativity is born of instant-specific disappointment. Still, in my opinion
they are guilty at Beauberry House of having a very nice place, very nice
staff, quite nice food, and yet still not managing to make a very nice
restaurant out of it. It’s quite a trick. But clearly they’ve been
perfecting it out here in peace and quiet for years.
Beauberry House
Gallery Road, SE21 (020-8299 9788)
Meat/fish: 4
Cooking: 6
Other: 5
Score: 5
Price: Three-course lunch: £16.50 weekdays. Less interesting
three-course
lunch: £25 weekends. Anything you might actually want to eat: up to £45,
but available only when they feel like giving it to you.
Blackfriars Restaurant
Friars Street, Newcastle (0191-261 5945)
Chris Churchill writes: “Had tea with my wife here two months
ago, after it was recommended to us by a colleague: exceptional service,
great atmosphere and delicious food at reasonable prices made this a
terrific evening we shan’t forget.”
That Café
1031 Stockport Road, Levenshulme, Manchester
(0161-432 4672)
Ruth Horridge writes: “In a word, fabulous.”
E-mail feedme@thetimes.co.uk if you know anywhere
fabulous, and maybe we’ll go there together
Book
a table at Beauberry house
